Remaining Hope
by Wandering Letters
Summary: Inspired by the Rise And Shine animated short. A few subtle changes and a stroke of luck allows Mei and one other member of Ecopoint Antartica's team to survive. Now stranded alone, the two of them must figure out a way to escape the base and get their data into capable hands. Survival however...is never easy.
1. On Their Own

**(A/N): Yep. Knew something like this was going to come. Who would've thought that Eskimo Satan herself would get such a touching animated short.**

 **That short was awesome, but it doesn't make proper sense as to how ONLY Mei survived. I find it hard to believe that she was the only one who managed to make it, especially since some of the others were probably more physically healthy that her. So in an effort to give the short just a bit more depth and more relationships, I decided to do this little remix.**

 **There are a few major changes I'm going to make concerning the short in order to accommodate said remix.**

 **1) There will be one more cyro pod added to the room, which will contain the survivor (who is an OC of my design).  
2) The battery situation will be less dire, allowing the two of them to stay there for a while before they have to leave.  
3) Mei will be a lot more shaken than she was in the short upon seeing the rest of her friends and co-workers dead.**

 **Any other differences, you guys can see them :)**

 **Rest assured, the story will have the same ending as the short, but in a different light. I've always wanted to try and get into Mei's head and this is definitely a great opportunity to do so.**

* * *

 _ **Remaining Hope**_

 **Chapter One: On Their Own**

 **~ o ~**

 _Carrying on is often difficult when there is no one to support you._

 _However...one person can be the difference between persevering and giving in._

 **~ o ~**

"Snowball...how long have we all been asleep?"

The little robot's eyes turned to pixelated tears before shifting to the time period I asked for.

 _"9 years?!"_

I stumbled back, absolutely astonished at what my friend just told me.

"What?! No! Overwatch would've come for us!" I exclaimed.

I immediately turned back to the table and entered a few keystrings in an attempt to bring the communications online. However...two red screens let me know that my efforts were futile.

"And our comms are down?!"

I pressed the eject button for the flash drive that contained the 9 years worth of data and picked up it before making my way back to the projector room. Snowball went back to his docking station as the screen came online. Much to my horror, numerous articles and newspaper covers littered the screen. The one that struck me the hardest however was one that read two words I never thought I'd see.

 **Overwatch Disbanded.**

"Gone?! Nobody even knows we're here..."

Now that I thought about it, I hadn't seen anyone since I came out of my pod.

"Wait a minute...where is everybody?"

Ignoring the kettle whistling loudly, I immediately sprinted towards the cyro pod chamber. I made it, panting heavily but I knew that I needed to ensure that I could rescue my friends. I immediately slammed my hand onto the status button of the middle most cryo pod, as it contained the head of our team, Dr. Oparas. Much to my horror however, red text filled the small display which spelled the word I feared most to read:

 **MALFUNCTION.**

I then noticed that his heart rate had completely flat lined.

The rest of the pods then lit up, displaying the same message as well as the same flat line on Dr. Oparas's pod.

"No...no no no...please no..."

Feeling a deep fear begin to take over my body, I rubbed the frost from the glass in order to see what was inside. I then froze in place, my legs turning to jelly and the uncontrollable urge to cry began to take over. I stumbled back to the counter...feeling tears begin to run down my cheeks. I fell to the ground, feeling completely helpless...and alone.

I brought my knees to my chest and folded my arms over them before beginning to sob. I couldn't believe that I was the only one who survived...the last remaining member of Ecopoint Antarctica's research team. Snowball immediately brushed against my left arm and once I looked at him, he nestled into my chest. I held him and cried out. My friends were gone...the people I spent so much time working with and who I began to call my family...all perished in their cryo pods.

A loud hum broke me from my sobbing and I looked up to see that the last cryo pod had suddenly come to life. My eyes widened as I rushed to it before hitting the status button. I then read the display.

 **Critical Condition.**

 **Lee Maxwell.**

I couldn't believe my eyes as I looked to the heart rate monitor.

It was slow...but he was still alive. I looked to Snowball.

"Get a source of heat for him Snowball, he'll need it to recover once I free him." I asked.

The little robot nodded and zipped off. I immediately ran to the desk and typed frantically, searching for the override system to allow me to manually open the pod. After several minutes, I finally managed to get it open. As the door raised, I ran back to it and just as I arrived, Lee's body slumped out the pod. I managed to catch him before lowering him to the ground as gently as I could. Not a few seconds later, Snowball returned with a heat lamp balanced on his head. I placed it next to Lee before lifting him into my lap.

"Come on Lee...please...wake up."

Out of all of the members of the team, Lee was undoubtedly my closest friend. He was the person who introduced me to everyone here at Ecopoint and he was also the one who taught me most of what I know about the technology here. He was also the one who was assigned to take care of the batteries, which were the only reason why it was possible to stay in this frigid climate. I lowered him to the ground and placed my ear against his chest.

It was beating...but he wasn't breathing.

Remembering everything I was taught in initial training to join the research team, I brushed my hair out of the way and immediately pressed my lips to his, giving him rescue breaths as best I could. Every few breaths, I leaned away to press his chest with my hands. I continued this for several minutes, but no results. The fear continued to fill me and soon, my initially tame attempts at resuscitation were beginning to get desperate.

 _"...Please...don't leave me Lee...I need you... **please**..."_

A loud cough broke me from my focus and much to my astonishment, it came from Lee. I watched in amazement as he slowly opened his eyes, gasping for breath as he looked around frantically for a moment. Upon seeing me however, he seemed to relax.

"...Morning." he said softly.

My emotions took over and I immediately hugged him tightly. He returned the gesture by wrapping one of his arms around my back.

"You're still alive...thank the heavens..." I cried.  
"Still alive? Mei...what's going on?" he asked.

I got up and helped him to his feet before sighing deeply.

"...A lot has happened Lee...and you're not going to believe most of it."

* * *

 **Two Hours Later**

"...I can't believe that Overwatch has been disbanded." gasped Lee.

Mei nodded slowly, letting out a saddened sigh.

"Do we have a lot of supplies left?" he asked.

She shook her head slowly, sighing yet again as she looked to Snowball.

"We have a few batteries left...but I don't think they'll last us very long. A couple of weeks at most." she replied.  
"So we have to get out of here before our batteries run out then..."

The scientist shook his head, still trying to process everything that his friend just told him.

"This place was really going to make a difference Mei...I felt it in my bones." he said.  
"I know Lee...and the nine years of data we've collected will save so many lives if we can get it to the right authorities." she exclaimed.

Lee approached her and placed a hand on her shoulder before looking at Snowball.

"Between the three of us, we'll figure something out...but for now, we should ensure that everything we need to survive is up and running." he explained.

Mei suddenly felt new hope pour into her and for a reason she couldn't explain, she immediately grabbed the scientist in a hug. Lee flinched and didn't return the gesture, instead nervously clearing his throat.

"I'm so glad you're okay Lee...I thought I'd be here alone when I checked the pods." she explained.

After a few moments, the scientist returned the hug.

"I guess I was lucky to have gotten out of that pod in one piece...now we just gotta stay alive until we can find a way out of this iceberg."

She released him before looking at Snowball.

"What time is it?" she asked.

The robot's eye display turned to numbers that read 19:49.

"It's getting late. We'd better get some sleep. We'll see what we can find in the secondary lab tomorrow to salvage." said Lee.

Mei nodded in agreement as she led her friend to the sleeping quarters. After ensuring she was comfortable, Lee turned to leave to his own quarters. Much to his surprise however, Mei spoke up.

"...Could you sleep in here Lee?...I'm scared of being alone..."

The scientist turned back to see her face. What was usually an optimistic, happy-go-lucky face that was always full of hope...was now replaced with deep fear and despair. Clearly, losing the rest of the research team left a much deeper hole in her psyche than he previously anticipated. He nodded before climbing into the bed next to hers.

"Alright...get some sleep Mei. I'll see you in the morning okay?" he assured.

She smiled at him and even though she still looked scared, she took off her glasses before snuggling under the thick blankets.

"Thank you Lee...good night." she whispered.


	2. A New Bond

_**Remaining Hope**_

 **Chapter Two: A New Bond**

 **~ o ~**

 _Diary Log: Day 9- Ecopoint Antarctica_

 _Figuring out our next course of action was difficult considering how limited our resources were._

 _After gathering up all we could salvage around the base, we set it in the storage room in order to figure out what we were going to do. Lee had the idea of fixing the communications dish so that we could get a distress signal to the outside world. Snowball suggested that we divide the resources evenly to keep our battery supply stable as well as to potentially fix the lone snowmobile we managed to dislodge from the ice just outside the base. I had no idea how it managed to survive almost a decade in the ice, but it was mostly intact and I was sure that either Lee or my robot companion could fix it._

 _However...the area continued to get colder and it was becoming more difficult to stay warm at night. Lee was more used to the cold than I was so he volunteered to give me his heat lamp on any night where the temperature fell below -90 degrees, because at that point even the base's internal heating wasn't enough to keep us warm throughout the night. I tried to protest, but he insisted because he could take it._

 _After spending a lot of time with Lee, I began to realize that I depended on him for so many things. He was the better cook of the two of us, so he often cooked on most days. He was handier with fixing things, though I seemed to be better at improvising from what we had on hand. He was stronger than me, so he did just about all of the heavy lifting which left me feeling sort of useless at times. Now that I think about it..._

 ** _What purpose do I_ _serve?_**

 _I wasn't as smart as him when it came to most of the technology here, I was weaker than him which always meant that I would drag him down...more and more I began to see that I really couldn't be of much use to our survival efforts. I was merely an extra pair of hands._

 _Oh how I wish the rest of our friends were here with us right now. If all of us were together, we'd be able to figure things out faster and more efficiently seeing as we would have six heads instead of just two._

 _The look of Dr. Oparas's face still haunts me to this day...and it was difficult for me to sleep most of the time, with Lee normally having to come to my side and hush me back to sleep. He didn't seem to mind though. He always looked at me with a smile on his face, even during the days when he exhausted himself so much that he needed to sleep during the day to have the energy to help me work on my newest design: a gun that could rapidly generate ice._

 _Yes, as crazy as that sounds, I believe I've drafted the plans necessary to improvise a gun that could use the cold to our advantage. I wasn't sure exactly how sturdy the ice would be once it forms, but the idea was to allow us to reach the communications dish if we could repair the damaged beams with it. Lee believed in my idea and he worked tirelessly to find all of the parts I needed to do it._

 _That would be the goal for the today: complete the gun and get the communications dish online._

 _We didn't have a shortage of food or drinkable water; we were rationing it very well and it's not like we had six mouths to feed. Our only concern was the worsening weather and the fact that no one on the planet knew that we were alive here in Antarctica._

 _Hopefully, things would change soon._

 _Time to get started...and perhaps I could start getting to know Lee a little better; he knew much more about me than I did him due to him reading all of my files before we went into cryo sleep._

 _Let's hope for the best!_

 _\- Mei_

 **~ o ~**

 **Later That Evening- Mei's Lab Space**

"Here Mei. I made you something warm to drink."

She turned to me and smiled brightly before accepting the mug from me.

"Thank you Lee." she said with a grateful nod.

I took my seat next to her before examining what was on the desk.

"Any luck with your invention?" I asked.

She nodded eagerly and after taking a mouthful of the hot chocolate, she looked to Snowball.

"Yes. I believe I've finally managed to fuse the freezing catalyst with the micro generator. You're actually just in time to see the first test run!" she said.

I put my mug down before smiling.

"Fingers crossed then." I said.

She got to her feet before pressing a button, bringing what looked like an insane contraption to life. Tubes ran from two tanks on the left to one on the right which was small enough to fit the casing she built yesterday. Evidently, that would be both the gun's body as well as the chamber that holds the modified liquid.

She talked a lot about creating a generator that was capable of introducing some kind of freezing catalyst that upon contact with air, would cause it to freeze into very sturdy ice. Had I been pitched this idea about twenty years ago, I'd have thought her to be insane.

But that was the thing about Mei-Ling Zhou: she always had a process in her mind. Since she joined the research team, I knew she was destined for greatness due to the fact that it was her very mind that invented the climate changing technology that assisted most of Asia in combating the ever changing weather. That was the very reason Dr. Oparas asked her to be a part of the initiative, and also the reason why she was assigned to be my partner. Initially when she arrived, I saw her as just a happy-go-lucky woman who wanted to help the world, but as she spent more time with me, I got to see what she was really like.

She truly lives up to her namesake of Mei, or "beautiful" in Chinese.

I couldn't think of anyone else alive apart from Dr. Angela Ziggler who had such a golden heart. She always thought about others and the very reason she joined Overwatch in the first place was to make a difference for the world. Now...here we were over 15 years later, fighting to stay alive in the most unforgiving place on the planet.

Her goal was to miniaturize her climate changing tech into something as small as a gun and thus far, it seemed like she was actually onto something.

"Lee? Could you pass me that red switch on the desk please?" she asked.

I snapped out of my thoughts before doing as she asked. She smiled at me before attaching the switch to what looked like some kind of tap.

"Alright, hit it Snowball!" she said.

The little robot flew over to the leftmost part of the contraption before pressing a button. The entire machine sprung to life. I saw a large tank filled with water light up dark blue. The tubing then fed that water into another tank which glowed an almost aquamarine color. The tubing from that tank then led to what I presumed was the generator that she worked so hard to put together. The liquid fed into the canister and once it was filled, Mei pressed a button just below it, causing the generator to spring to life. It took a few seconds and after witnessing it release a visible shock, she smiled brightly.

"...What exactly did you do Mei?" I asked.

She pointed to the tap in front of her. She then raised it up, causing some of the modified liquid to drip from it. The moment it fell and hit the saucer below, it froze into a fixture of ice right before my eyes. I gasped loudly as she cheered.

"I did it!" she exclaimed.

The joy began to wash over me as well but before I could express it, Mei grabbed me in a hug.

"You believed in me Lee...and I did it. It took a lot longer than I was hoping for...but we now have the means to fix the communications dish." she said.  
"What kind of partner would I be if I doubted you Mei?" I replied with a chuckle.

She leaned away from me, laughing softly and blushing visibly.

"Let's get going!" she said.

I shook my head firmly.

"Not so fast; it's already evening and it's far too cold to be out there. We can get to work on the dish in the morning." I said.

She looked astonished as she looked down at the clock on her desk.

"It's already 8 PM?!" she said in disbelief.  
"And you still haven't eaten dinner. Come on. I'll fix us something." I offered.

Much to my surprise, she shook her head.

"You've been cooking for the last five days Lee. My turn to do it." she said.

Her tone was gentle and kind, but firm enough to let me know that she wasn't going to budge on her decision. I conceded, allowing her to brush past me towards the kitchen.

 **~ o ~**

 **One Hour Later- The Sleeping Quarters**

"Dr. Oparas had you do that?!" I yelped in disbelief.

Lee laughed nervously before nodding.

"As serious of a man as he was, even he had a sense of humor. After I fixed his snowmobile, he actually apologized." he replied.

I laughed loudly, bringing my knees up to my chest as I took another sip of Chamomile Tea.

"I should've come here much sooner than I did, maybe I could've become a bigger part of the family." I said.

Lee shook his head.

"You arrived precisely when you meant to. You helped us get through some of the most difficult roadblocks in our research. Heck, you were the one who suggested we expand our spectrum of knowledge when it came to the data we now have...you did a lot more than you think Mei." he said.

He sounded a little nervous, but he gave me a genuine smile.

"I wouldn't be here if you didn't join us when you did Mei; for all we know, you could've been reassigned somewhere else if you came sooner or maybe you'd have been assigned to another Ecopoint base somewhere else in the world if you came later. You can't look at the timing and assume...I prefer to keep everything rooted to the present." he continued.

I let out a sigh of relief, feeling very appreciative of his words before nodding.

"Thank you Lee." I said.

He nodded in turn.

"Anytime."

I then looked down towards the ground, suddenly feeling more sadness wash over my body as my thoughts drifted yet again to our friends.

"...I really wish they were here with us." I said.

Lee got up from his bed and joined me on mine before placing his hand in mine.

"I do too Mei...I do too."

I unconsciously found my way to his chest and my grip on his hand tightened. He responded by wrapping an arm around me, never letting go of my hand. He also rested his cheek on my head in an attempt to soothe my troubled mind. It seemed like a ritual at this point; every night before we went to sleep, he would hush me as my thoughts involuntarily drifted back to the research team. Oh how I wish things would've turned out differently...

But he didn't mind. He was always there for me...to comfort me, to cheer me up...to give me hope.

Even though I had worked with him for almost two years beforehand...we had never felt closer than we did now. I felt so comfortable around him...

And he with me; he was never this affectionate back in the old days. In fact, he was quite shy. Dr. Oparas used to tease us, saying that we'd make a good couple if we'd simply stop being naive and shy around each other...and now I was beginning to see the truth in his words.

I had grown to care about Lee so much that I didn't want anything to happen to him.

 _"I'll get up early and fix the dish myself...he deserves a full day's rest after all he's done for me."_

After a few more moments, he let go of me before climbing into his bed. I bit my lower lip, now missing the warmth his body provided. Maybe I could get away with asking him to...

"Lee?...could we share the bed?...it's really cold..." I whispered.

I snickered to myself upon noticing the shade of red his face turned to, but he got up and joined me, albeit slowly. He scooted close to me, but didn't touch me at all. I imagined that his heart was fluttering just as rapidly as mine was right this moment.

"...Is it really that cold for you Mei?" he asked.

He sounded so flustered, it was **adorable**.

Not wanting to break his courage, I nodded, feigning feeling cold by shivering.

"...I'm sorry Lee. I don't mean to-"

Before I could even finish my sentence, I felt his arms wrap around my waist and his body meld with mine. He was so close, I could feel all of the heat his body was giving off.

If I didn't feel completely at ease before, I **definitely** did now. I let out a breath of relief before placing my hands over his and nodding.

"It's alright...thank you...I feel much better now."

It was difficult to hide how nervous I was feeling, but it was enough to fool him as he cleared his throat and rested his head just behind mine. He was so close, I could feel his breath against the back of my neck.

"Alright...I'll see you in the morning." he whispered.

Feeling bold, I scooted backwards into his body, allowing all of my back to meld with his chest as I hugged his arms to the front of my body. He flinched for a moment and I heard him suck in a sharp breath. After a few moments however, he relaxed.

Even though we were friends for two years prior to all of this...

This still felt like a new bond. One that was stronger than any other that I could think of.


End file.
